Ok mate, will do. I absolutely love Aja (but then who doesn't?), but Katy Lied...well anyway. I own a number of albums which are probably good but which I just haven't devoted enough listening time to.

I own a number of albums which are probably good but which I just haven't devoted enough listening time to.

Would you also recommend Gaucho then?

I have stuff a friend gave me 6 years go I have yet to get to.. so it goes.

Gaucho, what I've heard is good, but I don't own it. However, by that point Becker and Fagen were starting to quantize the drums, and when that happens my ears start to shut down, be it great music or otherwise. So I guess I'd say I'm towards Gaucho how you are towards Katy Lied.

In the movie "Urban Cowboy" in a few scenes Boz Scaggs's "Look What You Have Done To Me" plays. After a little searching around I found out Porcaro was the drummer. From what bits I heard of the song, it sounds good, especially the drumming parts.

Jeff Porcaro........This is the one man that has made an impact on more drummers than most care to realize! I,for one have been MASSIVELY impacted by this man's influence!
I find my self using the groove that he played on "Africa" on a lot of the stuff that i play, and i love the blues groove that he played on Toto's "All Out Of Love",you know, that triplet feel he had going that sounded like a little of Burnard Purdie's Shuffle going,kinda finesse!

Jeff Porcaro...he is a really a one-of-a-kind drum master!!! I am so sorry that he is not with us anymore...One fill performed by him that make me his big fan is one on africa live...well I don't remeber, but I think that this is dvd made in 1990 or 1991...after solo before last refrein...that fill was so cool...and among others the groove on Jake to the Bone...wow...
RIP Jeff!!!

I only just found out that Porcaro was the drummer on 'The Lowdown' by Bozz Scaggs and I haven't heard that song in ages, so I checked it out. Forgot how tight the drumming is on that song ... but does anybody know what the heck is up with the hats? They have to be double-tracked ... right? I just don't see how someone could keep that constant pulse you hear on the left channel while doing all those splashes on the right.

but does anybody know what the heck is up with the hats? They have to be double-tracked ... right? I just don't see how someone could keep that constant pulse you hear on the left channel while doing all those splashes on the right.

Yes, the 8th note hihat part is part of the original drum track, while the 16ths are an overdub. There's an old article from Modern Drummer where he talks about the Silk Degrees sessions and how he had fun improvising with himself for that overdub.

3) Dire Straits, On Every Street: 'Calling Elvis' features absolutely perfect rock drumming. You must hear this track!! The big single off the album was 'Heavy fuel'; crap song, great drumming, with a massive Jeff snare fill at the end.

4) TOTO, The Seventh One: features what I think is Jeff's best ever shuffle on the track 'These chains'. And a great Lukather solo at the end, but then every solo that guy plays is amazing.

5) TOTO, Kingdom of Desire: bad album, but the track 'How many times' has one of the greatest Jeff fills ever. You can hear it on Keith Kronin's 'Drum licks from hell' site - http://www.keithcronin.com/fromhell.html

If you really want to see Jeff at his best though you've got to get the TOTO Live DVD, filmed in Paris in '92. Every time I watch it I'm flawed by his time; he never ever drags or speeds up, except for the odd deliberate moment in a fill. I've never heard a drummer who had such control over the tempo...possibly Jim Keltner, but he did it in a different way. I've always been a massive Jeff fan but my respect for him was brought to new levels when it was pointed out to me, or at least opined, when I was at LAMA that Jeff was the only drummer who never once dragged or sped up. Not even JR could claim that.

Not to mention his works with 10cc ("Woman in love"), Les Dudek, Triumvirat, Radioactive...

It's been a long time and I had to re-register....oh well.
In answer to the question (Re: Jeff on "Chicago's" "Stay the Night").
Yeah. That's him. I was one of 4 people doing his credits list at Toto Network last year. Some good-natured nut asked me to manage that project! Anyway. Yeah; Jeff's the guy.
When a player shows up on a record uncredited, it's called a "ghost credit".

It was Foster's decision to use Jeff for "Stay the Night"
CARLOS VEGA is the groove behind "You're the Inspiration" as well.... two of the absolute best on the same record------three, if you count Seraphine, whose work I've always admired.

T

Quote:

Originally Posted by TonyAKA

Originally stated by RainCloudMusic earlier in the thread...

"Jeff also shows up BIGTIME for "Chicago" .... on "17", the first tune is all Jeff.

I thought for years that was Seraphine, but it was Porcaro on "Stay the Night"."

Is this true?

I've checked out the cd and only Seraphine is credited. There is an additional musicians part to the credits, and he's not in there either.

In researching Jeff's credits list for Toto Network, I found a Gary Katz interview someplace (I'll have to look it up and post the link----gimme a couple days, please....).

The interview detailed the tracking session for "Gaucho".
Porcaro and Katz did 46 seperate takes and pieced that track together bar-by-bar. Jeff's efforts kept the tune from being trashed.
""When Jeff was working, especially with Donald and Walter, his sense of devotion was unmatched. If he'd feel he wasn't doing exactly what Donald wanted, Jeff -- being the huge fan and the man that he was -- would throw his sticks at the wall in frustration and say, 'Get someone who knows how to play a shuffle! Call Purdie!' A few minutes would pass, he'd collect himself and do another take, and on those occasions he always brought to my face another smile.' Jeff's formidable efforts on behalf of "Gaucho" rescued the track from being scrapped."

"We were recording tracks for Steely Dan's "Gaucho" album at A&R. It was Jeffrey and three other musicians. In those days, we would record tracks forty, fifty, sixty times until Donald felt he had a track that was steady enough. In those days ('79), we didn't use click tracks, and the kind of click track that was available, Jeffrey hated. We played the track for quite a long time that night, and at about 11:00 or so, Donald said it wasn't working for him. When that happened, it was usually the kiss of death; we never tried the track again and the song would be lost. So at 11:00 he and Walter felt they had exhausted that track and were going to call it a night. Jeffrey and I were upset about that, because it was definitely going to hit the can, and we loved the song. Donald said, 'Okay, you guys stay, and if you cut a track that you like, call us and we'll come back.'

"We stayed there most of the night. I had a chart, and Jeffrey would play a take, and I would hear eight good bars -- not that all the bars weren't good -- but I tried to think like Donald. But I would mark those bars, and then the next four good bars... we did about seventy takes. We finally left at about 5:00 in the morning, and the next day I went to the studio with Roger Nichols and Jeff, and we literally edited this track bar by bar. I had all these markings on my chart... it was a fluke that I made a track that felt good. We called Donald, and they came over late in the afternoon and couldn't find anything wrong with it. And as nonchalantly as he had left the night before, he said, `There's another track.' "

That's a riot to watch.
What's funny about the gig is that one minute, you see JP in glasses and the next, the specs are .....gone. My guess (having worn glasses for 32 years) is that they had gotten in his way at one point......

That's a great live gig -tight group.

As I type, "Mushanga" is playing. I'm starting over after several years of not playing....I've seen the DVD and Jeff's demo of the Mushanga pattern. IT's gonna be a few years before I nail that one down.
YIKES. How scary could this guy be?????
T